Norman Posted June 28, 2008 Posted June 28, 2008 Ranger at Darrington said road closed 7 miles before trail parking lot. "Road falling into river" were her words, only bikes and horses allowed, plus no blow down work yet. Any one been in there? Quote
mattp Posted June 30, 2008 Posted June 30, 2008 The roadbed damage one mile up that 49 road is relatively minor and I suspect they will fix it soon. When I called the rangers they said they were waiting for it to stabilize a bit because they didn't want to fix it while it was still slumping. My guess is that with a couple of relatively dry weeks it is probably stabilizing. Quote
Norman Posted July 2, 2008 Author Posted July 2, 2008 I asked Ranger if the road block is law or is it just a caution. Could I drive around if careful with high clearance vehicle? Power trip or accurate info, but the lady said "you cand not cross barrier". OK, ok. We'll go the bicycles for now...still 7 extra miles and blow downs. Quote
goatboy Posted July 8, 2008 Posted July 8, 2008 Yeah, I asked the same thing in marblemount -- basically out of curiosity -- regarding using some kind of dirt bikes on the washed out road at the Downey Creek TH (as per Ptarmigan Traverse). She called her boss and got the definitive "no" response I was expecting... Maybe a classic case of "Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" Quote
JoshK Posted July 8, 2008 Posted July 8, 2008 Maybe a classic case of "Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" Oh absolutely, I could have told you that... ;-) He says 'no' because he thinks he is boss and I doubt he knows the actual legality of it. I'd be very surprised if the USFS would bring charges against somebody for dirt biking on a forest road in public lands. Last I checked that was, in fact, legal. If the sign says "road closed", it means to motor vehicles. The difference between using an offroad dirtbike or a normal pedal bicycle on the other side of the clousure seems legally ambiguous to me. FWIW, if I am able to find one to borrow, I certainly plan on using a dirt bike on a long section of a certain washed out road later this summer. Quote
Whatcomboy Posted July 11, 2008 Posted July 11, 2008 Well we did ride the bicycles 7 miles to the trailhead on Friday the 4th. Dirt bikes would work but there is a handfull of big blowdowns on the road we had to pick the bikes over. Coming out on Sunday a few had been cut with a chainsaw by somebody but no tire tracks. Looked like someone on horseback. It won't take much to fix the washout though. Quote
SkierDan Posted July 16, 2008 Posted July 16, 2008 Just got back from doing this route last weekend with my buddy kyle. There is only about 50 ft of road that is unpassable but we met someone who went up there on his motorcycle. The trail is in decent shape with only one kinda sketchy creek crossing and then there is a significant section of avy blowdown at around 4500 ft. Here is a link to our trip report on TGR, it was 48 miles rd trip. Quote
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